Hyphenated-Americans

PapaverSomniferum

I had a class in college with an immigrant student who called himself "African-American". He was white, of Dutch ancestry, from South Africa, and his English was poor enough that he didn't quite get why people were so weirded out by him telling them he was African-American. He was, technically.

ElyseL1

The one that really ticks me off is when they ask you your ethnicity, are you hispanic or non hispanic and then they ask you your race?! its like wth so i have to mark that my ethnicity is hispanic but my race is white bc i'm a mutt. Really ticks me the hell off. How abt i'm american bc i was born here and if you really want to know what my RACE is its mexican and white.

PapaverSomniferum

Identity is a multifaceted thing entrenched in a long history of evolving thought. It is ethnic, cultural, religious, familial, tribal, and nationalist.... It is intensely personal and political and historical and evolving.

Not a great topic for MFP forums.

its actually a great topic. if its not for you dont click.

Great topic, yes. Not for MFP tho.

of course it is. everyone is being civil here. since you cant handle it just dont click the thread.

You seem to be taking my comment personally.

I wonder why that could be?

its because i hate all the "lick the person above" threads. and when we finally have a real thread here id like it to stay.

If MFP is the only place where you are engaging in conversations like these, it might be advisable to branch out in your real life.

yes,

however,

the real-life "lick the person above you" conversations are a bit different from the ones online...

Laces_0ut

Identity is a multifaceted thing entrenched in a long history of evolving thought. It is ethnic, cultural, religious, familial, tribal, and nationalist.... It is intensely personal and political and historical and evolving.

Not a great topic for MFP forums.

its actually a great topic. if its not for you dont click.

Great topic, yes. Not for MFP tho.

of course it is. everyone is being civil here. since you cant handle it just dont click the thread.

You seem to be taking my comment personally.

I wonder why that could be?

its because i hate all the "lick the person above" threads. and when we finally have a real thread here id like it to stay.

If MFP is the only place where you are engaging in conversations like these, it might be advisable to branch out in your real life.

did i say that? since having an adult conversation is upsetting to you maybe you should go "lick the person above".

UsedToBeHusky

yes,

however,

the real-life "lick the person above you" conversations are a bit different from the ones online...

You... I like you!

You should come around more!

HarrietSabre

For me, this is the MOST FRUSTRATING THING about Americans for a biologist like me. Yes, appreciate your genes and yes, discuss it in detail with people that care. However, you can't be "Italian-American". You can be Caucasian-American, and you can hold dual citizenship in Italy and the States. Unless you're one of those two things, you're not "Italian-American", particularly if your family moved here 6 generations ago. I think the thing that annoys me most is that Americans seem to be extremely patriotic, so I don't get why they say "USA baby!" and then describe themselves as these weird hyphenated things that barely make sense. African-American does make more sense (a common genetics term for this population is Afro-Caribbean, actually), but it does seem to be a catch-all that's quite difficult to understand...I mean, we're ALL African if we go back far enough.

I'm British, European, whatever. Don't mind what you call me.

AEMW8

I don't see a reason to hyphenate unless you're an immigrant. Like my boyfriend would be Sinhalese/Tamil/Vedda-American as he's originally from Sri Lanka and I'm not sure which group his family from.

If we hyphenate me, it'd be British-Irish-German-French-Choctaw -Chickasaw-Cherokee-American and that's just going off of what I know of my family history. Why would I go around calling myself that long hyphenated name when I can simply say Southern American or American.

Daisychain65

I think I'll start describing myself as Roman-British, I quite fancy the hyphen idea

HarrietSabre

But to be snarky, on the demographic questionaires if it says "caucasian" I will check other and put "European-American" as I am a European Mutt (but mostly Anglo-Saxon-Jute) born and raised in American (5th generation).

Haha.. ME TOO! I'm not from Caucasia!

I don't understand that at all. Caucasian by definition means:

Cau·ca·sian
adjective /kôˈkāZHən/ 

Of or relating to one of the traditional divisions of humankind, covering a broad group of peoples from Europe, western Asia, and parts of India and North Africa

White-skinned; of European origin

in terms of those demographic questions.

This definition of Caucasian is cultural to the Americas. It actually means a person from the Caucasus Region, a very specific place. In Russia, Caucasians are considered "Black."

It's not, it's a biology term. In population genetics, our databases are Caucasian, Afro-Caribbean, Somali (very unique genetic structure), South Asian, East Asian and some places will have very small databases for things like Native American or Maori etc. In science, it's not a "social term".

HarrietSabre

I don't see a reason to hyphenate unless you're an immigrant. Like my boyfriend would be Sinhalese/Tamil/Vedda-American as he's originally from Sri Lanka and I'm not sure which group his family from.

If we hyphenate me, it'd be British-Irish-German-French-Choctaw -Chickasaw-Cherokee-American and that's just going off of what I know of my family history. Why would I go around calling myself that long hyphenated name when I can simply say Southern American or American.

This is what I don't get. I agree with most of your points, but the Americans do seem to always have a lot of knowledge about specifics of their family. That's great, in a way, but separating out British, Irish, German and French in that way is a pretty nonsense way of looking at things.

CorvusCorax77

Identity is a multifaceted thing entrenched in a long history of evolving thought. It is ethnic, cultural, religious, familial, tribal, and nationalist.... It is intensely personal and political and historical and evolving.

Not a great topic for MFP forums.

its actually a great topic. if its not for you dont click.

Great topic, yes. Not for MFP tho.

of course it is. everyone is being civil here. since you cant handle it just dont click the thread.

You seem to be taking my comment personally.

I wonder why that could be?

its because i hate all the "lick the person above" threads. and when we finally have a real thread here id like it to stay.

If MFP is the only place where you are engaging in conversations like these, it might be advisable to branch out in your real life.

did i say that? since having an adult conversation is upsetting to you maybe you should go "lick the person above".

what i find upsetting are your comments which evidence a lack of experience communicating with diverse groups of people on the subject of identity or having participated in extending your education on the subject beyond your own personal realm. I wasn't suggesting it is a bad topic for MFP because it is not about fitness, but rather because many people lack the education or experience to speak on such a personal and intense issue respectfully. It requires more than having aged to 18 years to have meaningful contributions to the conversation. Like I said, not a good subject for MFP.

HarrietSabre

I think my favourite example of this is a blog I read once about an Irish guy who went to stay in the States. He mentioned how he said he was Irish, and a bunch of the Americans he was with said "ooh, me too! on which side?" and he was like no...I'm actually from Ireland.

CorvusCorax77

But to be snarky, on the demographic questionaires if it says "caucasian" I will check other and put "European-American" as I am a European Mutt (but mostly Anglo-Saxon-Jute) born and raised in American (5th generation).

Haha.. ME TOO! I'm not from Caucasia!

I don't understand that at all. Caucasian by definition means:

Cau·ca·sian
adjective /kôˈkāZHən/ 

Of or relating to one of the traditional divisions of humankind, covering a broad group of peoples from Europe, western Asia, and parts of India and North Africa

White-skinned; of European origin

in terms of those demographic questions.

This definition of Caucasian is cultural to the Americas. It actually means a person from the Caucasus Region, a very specific place. In Russia, Caucasians are considered "Black."

It's not, it's a biology term. In population genetics, our databases are Caucasian, Afro-Caribbean, Somali (very unique genetic structure), South Asian, East Asian and some places will have very small databases for things like Native American or Maori etc. In science, it's not a "social term".

Caucasoid may be science.

Caucasian is relative to region. Ask anyone from Chechnya.

AnDiallo

Black people over here in the UK are officially recognised as 'Black-British' and its subsets, but I (and many others) personally generally refer to myself by my country of origin (e.g. Ivory Coast for me) or just as British.

Laces_0ut

Identity is a multifaceted thing entrenched in a long history of evolving thought. It is ethnic, cultural, religious, familial, tribal, and nationalist.... It is intensely personal and political and historical and evolving.

Not a great topic for MFP forums.

its actually a great topic. if its not for you dont click.

Great topic, yes. Not for MFP tho.

of course it is. everyone is being civil here. since you cant handle it just dont click the thread.

You seem to be taking my comment personally.

I wonder why that could be?

its because i hate all the "lick the person above" threads. and when we finally have a real thread here id like it to stay.

If MFP is the only place where you are engaging in conversations like these, it might be advisable to branch out in your real life.

did i say that? since having an adult conversation is upsetting to you maybe you should go "lick the person above".

what i find upsetting are your comments which evidence a lack of experience communicating with diverse groups of people on the subject of identity or having participated in extending your education on the subject beyond your own personal realm. I wasn't suggesting it is a bad topic for MFP because it is not about fitness, but rather because many people lack the education or experience to speak on such a personal and intense issue respectfully. It requires more than having aged to 18 years to have meaningful contributions to the conversation. Like I said, not a good subject for MFP.

obviously we'll never know but i am going to guess that i grew up with people from a wider range of nationalities, religions and ethnicities that you did. on top of that i have traveled to many countries and have interacted with people on their home turf.

just because you lack the ability(tact, knowledge, etc..) to discuss this in a civil manner here doesnt mean the rest of us can't.

CorvusCorax77

I'm gonna bow out of this absurd interaction and commend those who could contribute meaningfully!

Black! Blanc! Beur! (Et al!)

liesevanlingen

I'm Canadian, eh? (My mother's family is from England but MANY generations back, my father immigrated from the Netherlands as a child.) But personally, I think hyphenation is kind of silly. Maybe we should just identify ourselves as "human" and be done with it. It's pretty much all-inclusive. :bigsmile:

Laces_0ut

lets not let the debbie downer derail this thread!

HarrietSabre

But to be snarky, on the demographic questionaires if it says "caucasian" I will check other and put "European-American" as I am a European Mutt (but mostly Anglo-Saxon-Jute) born and raised in American (5th generation).

Haha.. ME TOO! I'm not from Caucasia!

I don't understand that at all. Caucasian by definition means:

Cau·ca·sian
adjective /kôˈkāZHən/ 

Of or relating to one of the traditional divisions of humankind, covering a broad group of peoples from Europe, western Asia, and parts of India and North Africa

White-skinned; of European origin

in terms of those demographic questions.

This definition of Caucasian is cultural to the Americas. It actually means a person from the Caucasus Region, a very specific place. In Russia, Caucasians are considered "Black."

It's not, it's a biology term. In population genetics, our databases are Caucasian, Afro-Caribbean, Somali (very unique genetic structure), South Asian, East Asian and some places will have very small databases for things like Native American or Maori etc. In science, it's not a "social term".

Caucasoid may be science.

Caucasian is relative to region. Ask anyone from Chechnya.

Nah. We use Caucasoid to avoid having to use Mongoloid, so science has just adopted Caucasian. Words can have two different meanings, for a start, and I've never heard anyone from Russia or the Ukraine (where I worked) use the term Caucasian anyway. Plus, the "people of the Caucasus" involve about 40 different ethnic (or cultural) groups, so it's not really that relevant to any discussion of hyphenation, even if you were using it to mean that specific region. You would be Lezgic-American, for example...

I do agree that the people of Chechnya have suffered a lot at the hands of these old-style "groupings", but it doesn't mean that it's logically correct (people in power love to segregate people based on useless regions) and it doesn't mean that that's how they see themselves.

UsedToBeHusky

I'm gonna bow out of this absurd interaction and commend those who could contribute meaningfully!

Black! Blanc! Beur! (Et al!)

go have fun in one of your lick, slap, bite threads since you cant handle it here.

You know... tact is missing here... but its not her lack of it.